The Evil Face

The terrible enigma of a tormented face.
All nerves and nervous beauty interrupted
By the intolerable Stigmata of a grimace.
This sinister being has the aspect of one corrupted;
In his green eyes are hell, hell's flames reflected,
Eyes that can poison, eyes weary, eyes pernicious,
By lines more than Satanical intersected;
The loathsome mouth controls a certain rictus vicious;
A lean face showing the bones in one triangle,
Ears of a Criminal that no sins diminish;
Hands Ducal, ringed and painted, in the act to strangle
His equal one midnight; fingers that never finish
The gestures of their unutterable degradation;
This actor in Life's Tragedy haunts you with his evil
Insinuations, as if an actual strangulation
Leapt from the brain to the body: an inimical Devil
Sits in his chair consumed with the intensity
Of one who drugs himself, of one who knows his peril,
Of one who lingers lovingly over his obscenity.
When his eyes open in Hell, they'll say: “All's sterile.”